


The Last Demon Standing

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Meg Masters - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse world, Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Megstiel - Freeform, Plot Convenient Demon Tablet, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 08:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14733072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: She was wearing a female vessel, a young, short girl with blonde hair and a pixie cut. She donned jeans and a red leather jacket.The eyes were wrong, he realized. Everything was wrong, but the eyes especially. The last time he had seen that look, her eyes had been a darker shade of brown.But it was her."Meg."





	The Last Demon Standing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NarrowWoodsWriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarrowWoodsWriting/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Amanda! Have an angsty fic!

“Are you sure this is where we are supposed to go?”

Jack continued pushing the bullets into the gun, as if he hadn’t heard a word.

“Jack,” Castiel called out.

Jack lifted up his head.

“I think so, yes,” he muttered, avoiding everyone’s eye.

He stepped away but Dean put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Look, kid. We know you’re upset. No one likes it, okay? But until we know exactly what the spell to open the rift needs, we can’t get rid of him.”

“I understand,” Jack said, tersely. “We should go.”

Dean looked like he wanted to say something else, but in the end, he let his hand fall and remained quiet.

There was not much he could say. The hike to the dungeon where they had found the Prophet had been quiet an awkward. In fact, the last few days since they had crossed into this world had been quiet and awkward.

Nothing had gone as it should have. The rift had closed, leaving them trapped in this apocalyptic world, haunted and vulnerable to Michael and his angels. Lucifer had followed them there and argued convincingly enough about the convenience of keeping him alive that when the time came to cast a vote for it… well, there was a reason Jack wasn’t looking at Dean in the eye.

Castiel wasn’t sure bringing Jack here was the best idea. Right now, he was the only one who could face Lucifer should he decide to try and break free from the Cage they had locked him in. Gabriel could hold him off for a while, but he was too weak to ultimately defeat him and they didn’t know whether the angel killing bullets would do any good.

But the idea of leaving Jack alone with him revolted Castiel.

He had also asked Sam if he wanted to leave the camp for this mission, but the younger Winchester was still shaken for what had transpired and said he needed some time to rest. Castiel couldn’t blame him either.

Their steps echoed loudly on the empty chambers, finding nothing but rubble and bones as they advanced.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Dean asked once more.

Jack sighed loudly. He was clearly starting to lose his patience.

“Yes.”

“I’m just saying, this could be a fool’s errand,” Dean continued. “If Kevin told you the truth, Michael could be invading our world right now and we wouldn’t even know it.”

Jack stopped in his tracks and turned towards Dean.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Be quiet,” Castiel interrupted them.

“Look, all I’m saying…”

“We’re not alone.”

That was enough to shut both of them up. Jack lifted his head and then tilted it. The sound was too faint for Dean’s human years, but both Castiel and Jack could hear it. Muffled steps behind them that had suddenly stopped in their tracks, perhaps having heard their argument.

Another angel, most likely. They all readied their weapons.

The building had been repurposed by Michael to keep prisoners there, and ultimately to serve as a trap. It wasn’t unlikely that he had left sentinels there, in case they did exactly what they were doing: go back to search for clues as to what to do next.

If that was the case, they wouldn’t have much choice but to run. They couldn’t afford to lose another fight…

A scream and the loud din outside disconcerted them. The three of them looked at each other and without exchanging a word, they turned on their heels and headed for the exit.

Castiel wasn’t sure what they were expecting to find. Not that, for sure.

They had to step over the body of an angel lying dead on the ground, the mark of his wings scorching the pavement, just to see two more angels moving fast on the sidewalk. They were both fighting against a small, black clad figure that moved between the two with admirable agility, fending them off with their own angel blade.

Castiel didn’t even think about it before he jumped forwards. Someone was fighting their foes, they were in disadvantaged and they needed his help.

The angel to his left raised her blade to attack the small figure as she was distracted with the second one. Castiel sank his blade on the back of her head, cutting through her neck with ease and then stepped backwards as the flash of light that followed her death made the two remaining fighters step back from each other and stop for a fraction of a second.

Only then Castiel managed to take in who it was that he’d just help.

The figure wasn’t clad in black. Their face was surrounded in angry, swirling shadows, black empty eyes fixing on his.

A demon.

The shock left him paralyzed, giving the other angel a moment to recuperate. He lunged towards Castiel with a ferocious roar:

“Traitor!”

With a flick of her wrist, the demon sent her blade flying the short distance that separated her from the angel. The point struck him on the side of the throat. He was dead before he even hit the ground, before Castiel even had time to raise his blade in defense.

Everything stayed quiet.

Castiel was aware that Dean and Jack were calling his name, he was aware they were in a vulnerable position were more angels could spot them at any moment.

He didn’t care about any of that. He blinked and refocused his sight on the demon so he could see more than just the shadows of her true form. She was wearing a female vessel, a young, short girl with blonde hair and a pixie cut. She donned jeans and a red leather jacket.

The eyes were wrong, he realized. Everything was wrong, but the eyes especially. The last time he had seen that look, her eyes had been a darker shade of brown.

She was staring at him as intently as he was her. A slow, happy grin bloomed in her full lips and with a shout she broke into a run and threw her arms around his neck. Castiel barely had time to hold her before her lips were on his, desperate, consuming.

She tasted just the same. Heavy smoke and spice.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed as she embraced him tightly, so tight it would have crushed him had he been human. “I knew it! I knew you’d come back!” She moved away with a laugh and put her hands on his face. “Oh, I like this new vessel. It’s cute.” As if to demonstrate just that, she stood on the tip of her toes and kissed him briefly once again. “What took you so long?”

Her voice was wrong, too. It was high-pitched instead of a raspy whisper, it didn’t accentuate the “s” in the right way.

But it was _her_.

“Meg.”

The smile in her lips faltered. A frown appeared between her eyebrows as she stepped back.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Meg, I…” he started saying.

Meg leaned down and quickly took the blade from the dead angel’s neck.

“You’re not Castiel!” she accused him, pointing it at him.

“I… I am. Perhaps not the one you knew,” he tried to explain.

“Don’t come any closer!” she threatened him. Castiel froze and put his hands in the air. “What is going on here? Who’s doing this?!”

She sounded distressed and Castiel thought he saw her hand tremble. He opened his mouth but then the click of a gun interrupted their conversation. Dean was standing to Meg’s right, pointing at her with his gun.

“I’d be careful with that thing if I were you,” he warned her.

Meg straightened her shoulders and looked around, taking in her surroundings. Jack was standing on the other side, also with his gun ready. Meg smiled again, but the previous joy Castiel had seen didn’t return.

“You really think bullets are going to hurt me?” she mocked him.

“If they’re good enough for angels, they’re good enough for you, _demon_ ,” Jack pointed out.

“Well, aren’t you a smart cookie?” Meg said, the blade balancing in her hand.

“Drop it!” Dean ordered.

Meg grabbed at the hilt, almost as if she was considering it throwing at one of the three and Castiel’s stomach flipped at the realization that things could go very wrong at any second.

“Stop, please, stop!” he said, though he wasn’t sure at who. His eyes were fixed on Meg, frantically looking for the words in his mind that would make her believe him. She was like a cornered animal and he didn’t know what she could do.

No, he did know. She would fight until someone took her out, but not before taking at least one of them down with her. And if the way she was glaring at him was any indication, that person could very well be him.

“Meg, you have to believe me,” he pleaded. “I _am_ Castiel.”

“Castiel is dead,” Meg replied, her words brimming with fury, as if she thought he was trying to mock her or cheat her somehow.

“This world’s Castiel, maybe,” he conceded. “But I’m… I’m a different version of him. And I know you. Please, listen to me. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Meg still clutched the blade tight, its point still aiming at him, but her eyes grew slightly wider, as if she was considering his words very seriously.

“Prove it,” she demanded. “Tell me something only Castiel would know.”

Castiel took a deep breath, memories flooding to his head as he stared at her. What could he talk about? The secret sweetness and patience she had shown to him? The way she smiled when she though he wasn’t looking at her? The last conversation they had, the fact he could never tell her…?

“There was… a name that you called me,” he said. “I never knew what it meant. But you used to call me Clarence.”

Meg’s face remained unchanged and for one horrifying moment, Castiel thought he had said the wrong thing. That this version of Meg called him something different or that she would refuse to believe him. That she would attack and he would lose her again, right in front of his eyes this time…

Slowly, as if she was still ready to jump at any moment, Meg lowered her blade.

“Dammit,” she muttered. “If you’re an illusion, you’re a very convincing one.”

“I’m not an illusion,” he assured her. He took a step forwards and considered the fact Meg didn’t raise her weapon again a good sign. “I’m real. It’s… it’s just kind of a long story.”

He glanced at Jack and then at Dean. Both of them seemed confused, but now that Castiel was standing in their line of fire, they both also put aside their guns.

“Yeah, well…” Dean muttered as he approached them. “We better go somewhere safe to catch up.”

Meg frowned at him.

“Do I know you, beefcake?”

 

* * *

 

Just as Castiel had predicted, even omitting a lot of superfluous details and simplifying many contents, it took them a long time to explain to Meg what had happened. The night closed over them, so they camped near some overgrown trees and set up a small fire for Dean’s benefit. Neither Meg, Castiel nor Jack needed res, so they kept talking even as the hunter started drifting off with his back against a tree trunk, his gun still in his hand as if he wanted to remind Meg that he could shoot her at any time.

Meg didn’t seem too concerned about that.

“So, let me get this straight: you come from a world where the Apocalypse never happened… through a rift between dimensions that kiddo here opened.”

“It was an accident,” Jack muttered. He kept staring at Meg, as if he couldn’t quite make up his mind about her.

“And he’s a nephilim?” Meg crooked an eyebrow at Castiel. “Yours?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

“No!” Castiel said at the same time. He didn’t know why he cared so much what this Meg though about him, but he definitely felt uncomfortable with her assuming that he had slept with a human woman. Jack looked at him with his lips partly opened, as if he was offended. “I… I adopted him,” Castiel clarified.

“Right.”

He wasn’t sure, but something in Meg’s tone indicated him that she didn’t quite believe him. Castiel hesitated to reveal Jack’s true parentage. Meg had been once loyal to Lucifer after all, and in this world…

“How are you alive?” he asked her, now that he had answered all of her question. “I thought Michael’s army had wiped out all demons.”

“All demons who didn’t have an angel watching over them,” Meg said. Her smile was cocky, but there was something dark in her eyes as she said those words. She immediately changed the subject: “Why doesn’t he open another rift and you go back to your world? It sounds nice over there.”

“It’s not that simple,” Castiel explained. “Jack doesn’t know what dimension he’ll be opening a rift into. We could end up anywhere.”

“So let me guess: you’re running around looking for another way to go back to Kansas.”

“Well, our base camp is actually here in Ohio…”

“Should you be telling her that?” Jack interrupted him.

Castiel looked at Jack and once again, he had to remind himself that he didn’t know Meg at all.

“She’s my friend, Jack.”

Meg didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. Her face was expressionless. She stretched her arms over her head as if she was really tired and then stood up.

“Well, this has been… a surprise,” she said, slowly. “But I think I’ll be hitting the road now. It was nice knowing you.”

She moved so fast she was several steps away from them by the time Castiel managed to react.

“Meg!” he called her out. She didn’t stop, so he stood up and ran after her. “Meg, wait! There could be angels…”

“I’ve been dealing with the angels on my own for the last five years,” she said, rolling her eyes.

That was astonishing enough to make Castiel stop.

“Five years?” he repeated.

Meg looked at him over her shoulder.

“Why does that matter?”

“It’s just… you…” He stopped and started that sentence again: “The ‘you’ from my world… she died five years ago, too.”

She didn’t try to walk away when he approached her. Castiel took that as a positive sign.

“Please, come with us. Maybe we can help each other.”

Meg laughed mirthlessly.

“You look like him, you talk like him,” she commented. “But you’re definitely not him, or you would know that I don’t need anyone’s help.”

She tried to move away, but Castiel grabbed her by the arm. It was an instinctive movement. Meg startled but she didn’t pull away.

“Please,” Castiel begged her. “I don’t want to…”

His voice trailed off, because he didn’t know what else to say. To lose her again? That was ridiculous for a number of reasons and Meg knew it.

“You don’t know me,” she snapped at him. “And by the sounds of it, you didn’t know _her_ all that well either.”

He couldn’t say anything to that. It was all too true. Slowly, he loosed his grip around her arm.

“What were you doing there?” Jack asked, startling them both. They hadn’t walked too far away from the fire, but they hadn’t realized he was listening in their conversation. “Back in the town. What were you doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Meg said.

“We came to look for something,” Jack said, after throwing a quick glance at Castiel. “Maybe you’ve seen it. It’s like a rectangular rock, but it has inscriptions on it?”

“The Angel Tablet?” Meg asked. Her eyes grew wider. “Why the hell are you looking for that?”

That took another hour of explaining: Michael, his use of the Prophet, his plans of invading their world. The fire crackled and died down since no one bothered to throw another log at it. Dean didn’t wake up, the gun slipping from his grip and falling soundlessly on the ground at some point.

“Well, why didn’t you say you were trying to fuck Michael over from the beginning?” Meg asked. Even in the dark, her eyes glimmered with malice. “I would be delighted to help.”

 

* * *

 

Meg knew more than she was saying, that was clear, but she refused to tell them more until they reached their camp, because she insisted she “needed to know what they were working with”. She and Jack lead the way as soon as the sun rose. Castiel walked with his eyes fixed on the back of her head, debating internally on a question that Dean eventually formulated out loud:

“So are you going to tell her?”

“Tell her what?” Castiel asked. Dean didn’t fall for his pretension.

“You know what,” Dean snapped. “I know you trusted her, but she’s not the same person you knew and…”

“You are aware I can hear you, right?” Meg said, stopping so Dean and Castiel could catch up with her. “What are you not telling me that beefcake thinks I should know?”

“I have a name, you know?” Dean said, offended.

“Yeah, see, the thing is… I don’t really care,” Meg replied, with a shrug.

“Oh, so you’re still the same bitch across all dimensions,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “That’s good to know.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Castiel groaned.

“That’s fine, Clarence.” She chuckled. “I can stand my own ground. What was it that you meant to tell me?”

Castiel exchanged one last look with both Dean and Jack. He supposed there wasn’t a way to keep avoiding it.

“We… there’s someone in the camp you should know about,” he started. “I know in this world Lucifer is dead, but… our version of him…”

Immediately raised her chin.

“Are you working with him?”

“No, we hate him,” Jack clarified quickly.

Meg burst into laughter, raising a close fist up to him. Jack stared at it as if he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

“I don’t bite, kid,” she encouraged him. Hesitantly, Jack also raised his fist and softly he pressed it against Meg’s. “There you go.”

“But _you_ used to work for Lucifer!” Dean exclaimed. He seemed very confused.

“Yeah, in your world, maybe.” Meg shrugged. “Here? Baby, I’m the reason he lost.”

She seemed exceedingly proud of that.

“When he was first released, it was a party,” she told them as they started walking again. “Lucifer promised us paradise. Literally: after the war on Earth was over, he was going to set his sights on Heaven, and take us all there. We were his children, after all, and if we won, we would deserve it. My father was static… and then Lucifer killed him to release Death.” Meg’s tone grew bitter. “He killed my brother, too. All the Princes of Hell and even this guy, Crowley, who was just in charge of the deals. Several high ranking demons, demons who had questioned his strategic decisions or committed some other slight against him, they were all used in the sacrifice, even though it made our army weaker. I’m loyal, but I’m not stupid. I would have died for him in battle in a heartbeat, but that wasn’t a battle. That was an assassination of anyone who could have possibly opposed him.”

“So you betrayed him?” Jack asked. He sounded half-surprised, half-impressed. “How?”

“How do you think? I went to the angels. I knew there was a chance they would smite me on sight and several of them seemed ready to.” The same grin as before appeared on Meg’s lips as she threw an eloquent glance at Castiel. “But the Captain said: ‘Let’s listen to what the abomination has to say’. Smart guy.”

“That’s how we met,” Castiel said.

“That’s how I met _him_ ,” Meg corrected him. “I told him everything I knew for full immunity. After the war was over, me and the surviving demons were supposed to be granted safe passage back to Hell. No more deals, but we could still have the souls of the wicked. In exchange from preventing my entire race from going extinct, it sounded fair.” She made another pensive pause. “Turns out archangels in general are just lousy at keeping their promises.”

An angel ward glowed softly to their right. They had passed the edge of the camp. They all stopped for a second and Castiel, for the first time since they had ran into Meg, wondered how he was going to explain her presence to the others.

Meg didn’t seem concern with such details. She stood in front of Castiel and raised her chin at him.

“I’m telling you as a warning,” she said. “If it turns out you’re lying to me about Lucifer…”

Castiel didn’t have time to assure her they weren’t. Two human sentinels appeared around one of the trees. Gabriel’s eyes opened wide and in a moment, he had his angel blade on his hand.

“Brother dear, care to explain where you found a demon?”

It was more complicated than it needed to be.

As soon as they found out she was a demon, the humans refused to let Meg into the camp, no matter how much Castiel insisted that he was willing to vouch for her. They even called Mary, Bobby and Sam into the edge of the camp, all eyes and weapons pointing at Meg while they argued.

“How can we know she isn’t lying?”

“Yeah, what if she’s working with Lucifer?”

Even Sam, who always had a more charitable opinion of Meg than Dean did, seemed hesitant.

“Sam, she helped you plenty of times,” Castiel pointed out.

Meg, who was leaning against a tree trunk and smirking as if all this discussion was very amusing to her, raised an eyebrow.

“Helping hunters? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“She also tried to kill us,” Sam pointed out. “Many times.”

“That _does_ sound like me,” Meg admitted.

Castiel really wished she’d kept quiet, because now everyone was staring at her with open suspicion. Meg grinned at them, undaunted.

“Look, let’s just cut to the chase. Put me in a damn Devil’s Trap already until you decide whether you can trust me or not. We all know where this is going.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Castiel said, but the sudden silence around him contradicted him. “It _won’t_ ,” he said eyeing the brothers, Mary, Gabriel and Jack consecutively.

“I mean… if you’re really that fond of her, that might be the most sensible solution,” Gabriel chimed in.

“At least, until we find out if anything she has to say can really be useful to us,” Bobby agreed.

Castiel didn’t like it, but one look around was enough indication that no one else was going to protest this. Even Meg seemed more than willing to go along with the plan.

“One condition,” he said. “We’re putting her in a different place from where we’re keeping Lucifer.”

Meg’s crystalline laughter surprised him.

“You read my mind, Clarence.”

 

* * *

 

The school turned refuge where the survivors had moved into had enough empty classrooms that it wasn’t hard to find an accommodation for Meg to be alone. Castiel brought her a chair so she could sit underneath the Devil’s Trap, though he knew there was very little chance she would grow uncomfortable or tired.

“This is only temporary,” he promised her. “Until we can convince them that they can trust you.”

Meg eyed him, as far away from him as the Trap’s perimeter allowed her to. It was pretty far, because Castiel had insisted on giving her plenty of space to move.

“They’re right, you know?” she said. “I could be lying. I could be planning to help Lucifer after all.”

“You’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you,” he insisted.

Meg scoffed. “ _My_ Castiel wasn’t this dumb,” she commented, turning her back on him.

Castiel didn’t know why, but the way she said it stung. He try to ignore it as he dragged another chair and sat on it.

“He might have been,” he groaned, irritated. “If he chose to rebel for a stubborn demon like you.”

He immediately regretted those words, thinking he might have crossed some kind of line. To his surprise, Meg laughed instead.

“That’s a little more like it.” She walked towards the chair and sat face to face with him. “He didn’t rebel for me, though. I don’t think he was planning on keeping me around for that long after he made his break, but I have ways of making myself… useful.”

Castiel nodded. _His_ Meg had also stuck around him for survival at first, too. As much as she insisted he didn’t know her, there were some things that remained unchanged anyway.

“What happened then?” he asked. “How did you two ended up…?”

He didn’t know how to finish that question. Together? In love? What was exactly the bond she had shared with him in this world?

Meg crossed her arms and leaned her chair backwards dangerously, making Castiel think she was going to toppled it over and fall, but she kept her balance.

“Michael decided no demon should be an exception after Lucifer was defeated,” she told him. “Breaking a promise to an ally didn’t sit too well with Castiel, but I don’t think he would have decided to run away from Heaven if it wasn’t because he found out humans were next in line. Now, I’ve never been too keen on them, but Cas thought this was blasphemy. Humans were his Father’s creations, He had given the earth to them and angels were supposed to guard them. So, I told him I knew of something that might be of help and he agreed to break me out. And we ran.”

Meg’s voice had grown softer as she spoke and a small smile appeared on her lips. Castiel didn’t know why she would feel fondness for the days she and the other version of him surely must have been hunted and in constant danger, but that seemed to be the case.

“What did you know?” Castiel asked, but the question proved superfluous. He remembered: the reason Crowley had captured Meg, the reason he had kept her alive and tortured her instead of killing her. “The Tablets.”

“I knew where Lucifer’s crypts were,” she said, nodding. “He kept them there. If we managed to retrieve them and get ourselves a prophet, well… we could learn all sort of interesting stuff from them.”

“But Michael had the Angel Tablet when he…” Castiel’s voice trailed off.

Five years ago, Meg had died to give him a chance to run with the Tablet. Five years ago, this world’s version of himself had died as well.

Meg’s face fell and she stood up to pace around the Trap. When she spoke again, she wasn’t looking at him.

“We were ambushed. Castiel told me to hide. I… saw it. They held him down and put an angel blade through his chest. And they took the Tablet with them.” She made a pause. Castiel stood up and took an awkward step towards her. “I came back later just to make sure. There were scorched marks of his wings on the cement…”

“Meg,” he called out.

She closed her eyes, still refusing to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step closer.

“It’s like a punishment,” she muttered. “Having to see you, having to hear your voice. If I had gone with him, if I had taken some of those sissy cloudhoppers down with me…”

He wanted to hold her. To put his arms around her and press her close to his chest, assure her he would never blame her for keeping on living. Tell her that he had believed she had made it for so long, that he also had to search her body to make sure that she wasn’t coming back…

But as soon as he stretched his hand towards her, she stepped away out of his reach and in the blink of an eye, all the vulnerability he thought he’d seen in her disappear.

“I have the Demon Tablet,” she announced. “We recovered it first and Michael never seemed too interested in it. I mean, why would he be when there were no demons left, right?”

Castiel shook his head and also composed himself.

“In our world, the spell to open the rift was on the Demon Tablet, but I don’t know if there would be anything in it that could help us here. And even if there was, we don’t have a prophet…”

“But it can help track down the Angel Tablet,” Meg interrupted him. “I had time to make some experiments. Both Tablets, they are… like magnets. If you have one, you say the right Hocus Pocus and it leads you to the other one.”

“That’s why you were where we found you,” Castiel deduced. “You were looking for it, but you were late The angels had already moved it.”

“You wanna know the best part?” The smug smile return to her lips. “Only _I_ know the spell. And you need fresh demon blood for it, which, you might have noticed, is not exactly abundant around these parts.”

Castiel tilted his head.

“So we can’t kill you.”

“Unless you want to stay here and make buddies with Michael, in which case, be my guest.” She shrugged, but the smirk stayed put on her lips. “What?” she snapped.

Castiel realized he had been staring at her and smiling as well. He shook his head.

“Nothing, just… you do have a way of making yourself useful.”

It was an observation, but Meg seemed to take it as a compliment.

“Beefcake’s gonna be mad, isn’t he?” she chuckled.

 

* * *

 

Dean was indeed mad when Castiel related all he information that Meg had given him.

“I don’t like it!” he said. “We don’t know if anything she said is true. She could be sending us in a wild goose chase.”

“And even if we do get it and somehow also manage to get our hands on the Angel Tablet, we still don’t have a Prophet to read what it says,” Bobby pointed out. “That’s a lot of work for a maybe.”

“It’s not a perfect plan,” Castiel admitted. “But our other option is waiting until Rowena can reopen the rift on her side of it. If she can find a way to do so without an archangel’s grace, that is.”

Silence fell around the table. Castiel looked at the faces on by one, expecting to hear more protests, but none came.

Mary patted her fingers on the table and then leaned forwards.

“Do you rally trust her?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, without a second of hesitation.

Mary held his gaze for a second and then nodded gravely.

“It’s a five hours drive to Pontiac,” she determined. “We have enough gasoline for it. You should go, Cas. You don’t need to sleep and no one will have to replace you on the wheel. You could be back within a day.”

“According to Meg, the place is angel-proofed, so I will need someone else to go in and retrieve the Tablet,” Castiel said.

“Not to mention there could be monsters,” Arthur added. “So you will need weapons, too.”

It didn’t take long to formulate a plan. They would leave in the morning, after Sam, Dean and Arthur had rested well. Gabriel and Jack would stay on the camp in case there was an attack or in case Lucifer tried anything. Which he hadn’t so far. It made Castiel nervous, that quietness. It made him wonder what he was planning.

But for the time being, the best they could do was move forwards. Do something, even if it would prove fruitless.

It made the perspective of waiting the entire night more difficult. Castiel was tempted to go up to Meg’s room and talk to her some more. Her voice might not have been the same, but the cadence of her words, the way she smiled…

He couldn’t forget she’d said it was a punishment to see him. So he ended sitting outside in what had been the school yard, with his hands on his knees and staring at the sky. The bright starlight was a beautiful reminder that this world had been destroyed and was slowly gasping its last breaths.

Soft steps approached him from behind and a moment later, Jack sat down by his side. He had been quiet during the meeting where they decided their course of action and even know he didn’t say anything for several seconds. Castiel wasn’t bothered. Humans might feel the need to fill up the silence with chatter, but he was just as content in that long, familiar silence as he watched the stars.

“You never told me about her.”

Castiel slowly lowered his gaze to meet Jack’s.

“The demon,” Jack answered to the question Castiel didn’t formulate out loud. “You never said anything about her.”

Castiel looked up at the window where he knew she was. He couldn’t see her silhouette in the dark, but he knew she was there. Was she pacing? Was she sitting on the chair he had brought her? Would she be bored, irritated, or just as uneasy as him during this interminable night?

“I lost her,” he murmured in the end. “It was painful to… to even think about her. She was my friend and I failed her. I thought she had made it somehow, but when I looked back… I should have protected her. She died because I left her behind.”

He didn’t know why saying the words out loud made his chest constrict like it did. He wasn’t expecting his hands to start trembling, so he grabbed at his knees even more forcefully, hoping Jack wouldn’t notice.

But his questions weren’t going to get any easier to answer.

“Did you love her?”

Castiel closed his eyes for a seconds. He had asked himself the same thing so many times. Alone, hunted, afraid… he had wondered if the flutter in his chest he had felt as he held her hand the last time the spoke, if his head feeling dizzy when she smiled at her was the emotion humans understood as love. She had asked him a question and he knew exactly what he would have said if they could go back to that moment, if they’d had a few more seconds together. But then again, there were so many things going on at that time, how could he trust his own thoughts…?

_I know who you love._

He shivered.

“I cared for her,” he told Jack, because that sounded like the simplest answered. “If… maybe, if we had been given more time… I don’t know. It’s complex.”

“She seems to love you,” Jack commented with a gesture towards the window they were both staring at now.

It had not occurred to Castiel up until that point that Jack had been privy to the way that Meg had greeted him. He didn’t know how to feel about that.

“She… it’s really, very complex, Jack.”

He danced on the edge of telling he would understand it when he had lived a little more, but he knew Jack was smart enough not to fall for that. And he was smart enough to know this line of interrogation wouldn’t yield the answers he was looking for.

“I just… she’s your friend and you trust her. Well, the Meg you knew,” he explained. “And she was a demon. But if you loved her anyway… she couldn’t have been all that bad, could she?”

Castiel suddenly understood what this was all about. Jack was wondering, as he had been since he learnt the truth about his parentage, if someone’s nature would force them to act a certain way.

_I’m kinda good, which sucks._

He was smiling again without realizing it.

“No. She wasn’t that bad.”

He had no idea it would be that easy, but once he started talking, it came very easy to him: the memories, the words, everything that had happened between them. Meg’s softness with him and also her hard edges. The shadows he saw swirling right underneath her skin and yet her kindness and patience, which wasn’t infinite by any means. She was a heap of contradictions, but in the end, what she had done for him, what she had sacrificed, had spoken louder than her protests and her cynicism.

He didn’t realize he had been speaking for hours until he looked back at the sky. There was a grey, cold dawn breaking in the horizon and it would give way to an equally cold, grey day. He had been in this world for only a few days, but he already missed the warm sun from his reality.

He stood up, the rigid muscles of his vessel protesting at the sudden movement. He wasn’t the angel he used to be. For the first time in ages, Castiel felt old. He looked at Meg’s window, still not expecting to see anything, and then turned to Jack.

“We’ll try to be back before sundown. You will be alright, yes?”

Jack blinked once and then looked up at him. He smiled softly and nodded.

“Thank you for telling me about her.”

He stood up and Castiel opened his arms to hold him.

He was a boy. Even if the future was very uncertain for everyone right now, Castiel was sure that he would be alright after all.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t a very picturesque sight.

Castiel had visited that very same place when he went to look for his vessel, what felt like lifetimes before. Back then it was a lively, if small, town, with peaceful suburban homes lining up the streets. Now, like everything else in this world, the buildings were in various states of decaying, the gardens and plants reclaiming their space, overgrown and wild.

It seemed like almost an irony that Meg had chosen that precise town to hide away the Demon Tablet, but Castiel was beginning to understand there wasn’t such thing as a coincidence. Even between realities, some things… well, they just seemed bound to happen no matter how.

They parked the car behind a large tree and exited, all carrying their weapons in hand and empty duffle bags. Castiel didn’t have too much trouble finding the spot. The house was significantly less ruinous than the ones around them, but what really gave it away were the carvings on the fence around the unkempt garden. The Enochian wards were precise and clear, warning off any angel that came close that they would be blasted off painfully should they come too close. Castiel wasn’t sure if Meg had modified the spell so it would work that way, but he wasn’t willing to risk finding out.

“You and Sam stand watch. Ketch, you and me are going in,” Dean decided. “Did she tell you exactly where it would be?”

“Underneath the second loose step, protected by more wards,” Castiel told them. “Be careful.”

Arthur and Dean slipped past the house’s door that hanged loose on its hinges. It wasn’t exactly inviting, but it didn’t seem like Meg was too worried about humans going into her refuge. He and Sam stood around without speaking, until Sam cleared his throat and Castiel sighed. Here it came, the filling up of the silence.

“So… what are you going to do?”

Castiel had a suspicion about what he meant, but just to make sure, he replied:

“About what?”

“Meg,” Sam clarified, proving Castiel right. “This Meg, anyway. What are you going to do when we go home?”

“Frankly, I’m not thinking about it right now.”

“Maybe you should,” Sam insisted. “I know she meant a lot for you, but… she’s not…”

“I know she’s not, Sam,” Castiel cut him off. “Everyone keeps telling me that. It doesn’t change…” He went quiet and looked away.

Sam wouldn’t let up that easily, though. “It doesn’t change what?”

Castiel slowly turned his gaze at him.

“It doesn’t change how I feel,” he admitted in a whisper.

Sam’s expression was hard to read, but if Castiel had to guess, he would’ve said it was pity.

Dean appeared on the doorway again.

“Hey, Sammy, get in here,” he called. “There’s, uh… a lot more stuff than Meg let on.”

 

* * *

 

Darkness was setting in by the time they made it back to the camp. Sunsets in that world were just as underwhelming as its sunrises, the brief grey light extinguishing and drowning the world in shadows. The torches, fires and candles in the camp glowed dim as Castiel climbed the stairs and walked down the long hallway that lead to Meg's classroom.

He heard the whispers and stopped, making himself as quiet as possible.

"... but he says he has changed."

It was Jack's voice and it was undoubtedly coming from Meg's classroom.

"Kid, listen. They don't call him the father of lies just because it's a rad title," Meg replied. "If he made you and if he wants you on his side now, it's because he has a use for you. And once you have fulfilled that use, once he no longer needs you, you can rest assure he's gonna kick you to the curb like yesterday's trash."

There was a pause. Castiel pricked up his hears and caught the echo of Jack's steps, pacing around in the room as if he was reflecting on what Meg had told him.

"Maybe it won't be like that," he said in the end, in a faint whisper. "I'm his son. You're..."

"A demon?" Meg asked and cackle as if Jack had told a very funny joke. "Just a worthless, filthy demon?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"No, I know what you meant," Meg replied. Her tone was sharp now. "It doesn't matter. I revered him like a god and he still killed my family. He created us and then he led us into the slaughter for his own selfish gain. That is who he is, that is what he does. It won't be different with you, kid. But it's not because you're part human or because I am demon. It's because Lucifer only cares about himself."

Castiel had heard enough. He resumed his walking, loud enough that Meg and Jack could know he was coming. Jack looked over his shoulder at him and immediately lowered his gaze, as if he felt guilty about something. Castiel decided not to mention anything he had heard and simply greeted Jack like he always did before turning his attention to Meg.

"We found your stash," he told her.

Meg stood in the middle of the trap, her arms crossed over chest and her expression unreadable.

"So?" she asked, crooking an eyebrow.

"You didn't mention you had the Prophet working for you, helping you decipher the Demon Tablet," Castiel commented. "We found Kevin's notes and notebooks."

"Didn't think it was relevant." She shrugged. "Yes, he helped us for a year or so until Michael took him along with the Angel Tablet."

Once again, Castiel suspected she wasn't telling them the full story, but there as no point in trying to interrogate her further. He simply took out his blade and scraped a little of the Devil's Trap on the floor, enough to break it.

"Since you told us the truth, Mary has decided that we could let you out. But you're going to be under my surveillance the whole time."

"Good. I was getting bored in here."

In two long strides she was out of the trap, but she stood on the doorway for a moment to look at Jack.

"Be smart, kid. Don't trust the Devil."

She strutted into the hallway with the exact same confidence as before. Jack threw another ashamed look at Castiel and muttered something about helping prepare dinner before he scurried away in the opposite direction. Castiel decided he would talk to him later and went after his demon.

"Meg. Wait, Meg..."

Meg stopped near the stairs and turned to look at him. She look slightly irritated.

"Fair warning, after I help you find the other Tablet, I'm out."

The announcement stunned Castiel enough that it took him a few seconds to react when she turned around and started walking down the stairs.

"Meg!" he called her and ran after her. He reached her in a landing and put a hand on her shoulder to make her stop and turn to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I told you if you were working with Lucifer I was out," she reminded him.

"We're not working with Lucifer."

"No? Because the kid seems to have been listening to a lot of what dear old Satan has to say.”

“Jack would never…”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” she shot back. “Because by the sounds of it, he might be considering lending him an ear and in my experience, that is all Lucifer needs.”

“Jack wouldn’t betray us,” Castiel insisted. “I know him. He is a good boy.”

He wasn’t trying to be funny, but Meg laughed out loud at him anyway.

“No one is inherently good or bad, Clarence. What they do is what matters. You told me that!” She made a pause and stepped back against the wall. “Well, the ‘you’ that wasn’t a complete moron, that is.”

She tried to get away again but Castiel grabbed her by the arm to keep her in place. He realized, with a bittersweet pang in his chest, that it was the first time this version of Meg called him “Clarence”.

It sounded wrong in her voice.

“Let me go,” she demanded, her eyes glimmering with fury.

“No. Not until you listen,” he said, tightening his grip and standing right in front of her. “Please, if you would just listen…”

Meg planed her free hand on his chest, but her push was too weak to move him away.

“You have nothing to say to me!” she shouted, frustrated. “You don’t know me! You’re not _him_!”

The words cut him like a knife right through the chest. He lowered his eyes at her, watched her face closely in silence for a few seconds.

“No,” he admitted in a whisper. “And you’re not her.”

It was as if all the air left her simultaneously. She stopped struggling and stared at him, her eyes wide open as if that simple asseveration had disarmed her.

Or maybe it was Castiel who felt defeated. He released her like she had requested and stepped back. If she was anything like his Meg (and she was), then there was nothing he could do or say that would make her stay.

She didn’t run. She remained where she was, still staring at him with those eyes that weren’t the right shade of brown. Castiel knew if he stared the right way, he could look past them, he could look past the human mask and see the hollow sockets and sharp teeth of her real form.

But even that wouldn’t be quite right.

“Oh, goddammit,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Fucking hell.”

Castiel couldn’t say he was unprepared this time when her lips clashed against his again. He saw her coming, she felt her hands on the back of his neck pulling him down. But he wasn’t expecting the sudden wave of melancholy that came over him, overwhelming him, swelling up in his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Her tongue slid up against his – same taste as before, smoke and spice – as he lifted her up and ran his fingers through her hair.

Short. Blonde. Wrong.

His heart still beat fast when they broke away. Her eyes were shinier, if only because there were unshed tears brimming on the edge.

Castiel leaned down and kissed her again before any word could be uttered between the two. Anything that reminded them that this wasn’t right for either of them.

No matter how right it felt.

They said nothing still as she grabbed him by the hand and lead him upstairs again, down the hall and into the classroom with the broken Devil Trap. No words while she kissed him one more time, her hands slipping underneath his coat and trying to slide him off of him…

Some notion of what they were about to do, some semblance of guilt finally prompted Castiel to stop and back away.

“What is it?” she asked, looking intently at his face. “What’s wrong?”

There were a million things that were wrong, but Castiel decided to focus on just one.

“You… this… body that you’re using…”

Meg frowned for a second, but then she understood.

“Oh. No. The girl… she let go long ago.” Her fingers toyed with his tie for a moment. “I’m alone in here. You?”

“Me too. This vessel… well, it’s been through quite a lot.”

Meg chuckled softly.

“You gotta tell me what you mean by that.” She nuzzled his neck and added: “After.”

Castiel closed his eyes and let his hands wander. He pulled Meg’s jacket down her arms and let it fall to the floor, and his palm came to rest on the soft skin exposed between her shirt and her jeans as they kissed once more.

He thought he knew what to expect. He had done this before. Sex had been a pleasant experience, even if his last partner had turned out to be someone who wanted to manipulate and kill him. He didn’t believe Meg had those intentions towards him, but the sex itself, he didn’t expect it to be any different.

He was wrong.

Even the act of helping each other out of their clothes had him trembling. His blood pulsed with every inch they undressed, with every kiss that Meg left on his neck and shoulders. When he stopped to look at her, standing shameless and semi-naked in front of him, she gently took his hands and guided them where wanted them to be: cupping her small breasts, sliding down her back, pulling her close to him. She felt so small against him it was almost a surprise how strong her hands were, how much they could press him on and demand from him.

How well she knew him.

Meg slid her fingers down her back and massaged a soft spot right over shoulder blades. A wave of unexpected pleasure shook Castiel’s body and a soft moan escaped from his lips into hers. She chuckled, pleased.

“Like that?” she asked, playfully. “Right where your wings are, angel.”

She pressed again and Castiel’s knees grew weak. He tried to soften their fall as they collapsed together on the hard concrete floor, but Meg only laughed and laid back down. Her eyes looked black in the darkened room. Or maybe they had really gone black.

“Are you just gonna watch or…?” she asked.

Castiel toyed with the buttons of her jeans before he undid them and gently tugged at the fabric of the black panties she was wearing.

“I want to make you feel good, too.”

Her lips parted slightly as she sucked in a breath, but she still managed to sound calm when she said:

“Well, then. Get to it.”

Castiel did. Slowly. He had a faint idea of what he was supposed to do, but he had never actually attempted it. It was best not to dwell on it too much.

He kissed the top of her breasts, paying attention to the way her flesh heated up under his lips, to the way she writhed and moaned when he touched her over her underwear and then underneath it. He left a trail of bites and laps over her stomach, reveling in the sensation of her, of her fingernails scraping the back of his head and her voice urging him to go where she wanted him to be. She lifted up her hips so he could help her out of her jeans faster and then laid watching him expectantly as he caressed the inside of her thighs. Castiel took in her musky scent for a moment before he opened his mouth and gave a tentative lick,

She tasted much differently there. Sweeter.

If he had been nervous about trying to please her this way, soon he found there was no reason to be. Meg was very vocal about what she wanted and how she wanted it.

“Slower… and less teeth… oh, that’s right. Yes! Castiel…”

He kept at it until her instructions and words dissolved in moans that fell from her lips in tandem with the way he kept moving his tongue and fingers. He closed his eyes again, just focusing on her, on the way her hands grabbed fistfuls of his hair, the way she writhed and screamed every time he tried a new angle or rhythm, the tension building up in his own lower stomach…

Meg yanked him away so suddenly that he froze, perplexed.

“Did I…?” he asked and had to stop to catch his breath. “Did I do something wrong?”

Meg shook her head and gently pulled him up until he was face to face with her again. She lowered her hands to pat the hardness peeking through his half undone slacks.

“I want you,” she whispered. Her fingers around his erection sent an electric shock down his back. “I need you. Cas…”

She kissed him again, rolling over and so now he had his back on the ground, nibbling at his lips and tasting herself in him, aggressive and frantic now. She lowered his boxers just enough to free his erection and before Castiel could realize what was happening, before he could beg her to slow down or wait, she was already positioning herself on top of him. The heat and slickness between her legs swallow up him and suddenly, he couldn’t tell anymore where she ended and he began. Meg’s hands on his stomach and shoulder kept him pinned to the floor. Her hips rose and fell, faster and faster until every nerve in Castiel’s body was reaching a fever pitch. He stared her face, her lips parted with her agitated breathing and he tried to say something…

A single tear appeared on the edge of her eye and fell down, following the curve of her cheek.

It once again halted Castiel’s pleasure in its track. He put his hands around Meg’s waist and tenderly held her in place until she slowed down enough for him to sit up. She was still sprawled on his lap, still so close together that their bodies seem to melt against one another. But even as he wrapped his arms around hr, as he sank his face on the crook her neck… it felt like there was an entire universe of unspoken words between the two.

Meg kept rocking against him until he was once again forgot anything that wasn’t her.

“Castiel,” she called out.

“I’m here,” he assured her.

“Castiel!”

“I’m here,” he repeated, trying to kiss her tears faster than she could shed them. “I’m here.”

With a soft, sharp cry, Meg’s small body shuddered and clenched around him, her fingers once more searching for the sweet spot in his back. The pressure was enough to tip him over and he spilled, the intensity of his orgasm clouding his mind and he found himself unable to do anything except hold on to her, hold on to her with all his might, with all his fear and grief.

It took him a long time to realize that he was crying as well.

 

* * *

 

The patch of sky they could see through the window was still dark when Meg finally moved. She had been silent and immobile, her back against his chest as she used his extended arm as a pillow, for so long Castiel started counting the seconds or the breaths she took. He knew she wasn’t asleep. Just… thinking.

But finally she moved, if only to stretch her hand and pensively draw circles inside his extended, open palm.

“You were never with her, were you?” she asked. She didn’t need to clarify who she meant.

“I…” Castiel hesitated, but there was no point in lying to her. “No. She died before we had the chance.”

“Lousy luck.”

“But I would have… if I could have, I’ve…”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted him. “I get the idea.”

She moved away from him and he shuddered at the sudden loss of her warmth. She felt up around for her discarded clothes, without even looking at him again.

It hurt, this indifference.

“Meg…”

“You know how I knew you weren’t him?” she asked. Slowly, she turned to him and showed him a bitter smile. “He never called me that.”

It made sense. A demon’s name could be a very dangerous thing for them to reveal, it could be a clue about their bones’ whereabouts or other secrets of their human lives they would rather keep out of sight. It could expose them to summoning and binding spells or even personalized exorcisms.

The fact she had trusted him, the version of him she had known, with that information went to show just how much further than he and his version of Meg had gone.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Not being the person she really wanted to be with? Not being able to imitate him enough that she would forget about the difference?

Though, to be fair, he couldn’t forget them either. Perhaps that was why he stayed where he was as Meg picked up her clothes in a bundle like she intended on getting dressed again.

But halfway through it, she sighed and put the bundle away.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “This… just… this entire situation is fucked up.”

Castiel was inclined to agree. He passed an arm around her waist again and when she didn’t try to push him away, he sat up and left a kiss on the crook of her neck. She lowered her hand, her fingers dancing over his forearm.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, though he suspected she really wasn’t looking for an answer. He pulled her closer and Meg didn’t resist, resting against him with a sigh. “Perhaps…” he started, but shook his head.

“What?”

“Perhaps… you could come with us,” he said, knowing exactly how his words sound as they were coming out of his mind. “When we open the rift again, you can… come with us into our world. You said it sounded nice over there.”

She let out a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a scoff.

“I don’t want to leave you here,” Castiel insisted.

“Where else am I going to go?” she asked, sharply. “I won’t belong there. I don’t belong in this world anymore either. The only reason I haven’t gone out in a blaze of glory fucking up as many angels as I can yet is…”

She interrupted herself. It hurt to hear those words coming out of her mouth. But Castiel couldn’t blame her. The sheer despair in this world would be enough to wear even the strongest down.

“What is it?” he asked, after she was quiet for several seconds.

“Fear,” Meg confessed. “I don’t know what happens to demons when we die. What if I wake up in an even deeper layer of hell and it’s empty over there because I’m the last demon standing? What if I don’t wake up at all? What if I just vanish and… and there’s no one left to remember him?” She made a pause. “What if he comes back one day, really come back, and I’m not here anymore?”

Castiel sank his nose into her hair and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. It wasn’t possible, he knew, but he still feared she might be cold in that big empty room.

“Remember when I told you I had been through a lot in this vessel?”

He didn’t tell her everything. That would have been a long and winding story. But he told her enough. He told her about how every time he died, he forgot what happened, so when he was brought back, it always felt like waking up after a dream that he couldn’t remember.

Except for the last time. The last time he had woken up in the impenetrable darkness of the Empty when Jack had called his name.

He struggled to find the words to describe it to her.

“It’s unnerving. Silent. You can feel the presence of millions of… angels and demons. Slumbering. Undisturbed.”

“So we all end up in the same place and sleep forever,” Meg summarized. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

The calm tone in her voice disturbed him. Meg must have felt it in his gaze, because she looked up and forced out a smile.

“Beats the plan I pitched to him the last time we spoke.”

She went silent again, for a very long time. Her hand had stopped moving and now it rested lazily on his forearm.

“We found the Demon Tablet, we found the Prophet,” she told him. “Poor Kevin. He tried to help us because he thought it was just the right thing to do. He found out about a way to close the Gates of Hell, and that got you… Castiel. It got him thinking, there must also be a way to shut the Gates of Heaven inscribed in the Angel Tablet. Get Michael and all the other feathery asses locked up and save what was left of humanity.”

“But that would have locked him up with the rest of them too,” Castiel pointed out, frowning.

“And he was going to go with it, like an idiot,” Meg replied. “He said he was going to endure whatever punishment they deemed necessary to bestow unto him. Such a martyr complex.” She sighed. “I told him it was a terrible idea and that he should stay on earth. With me. With the humans he liked so much.” Her eyes were puffy and red when she looked at him again, but she wasn’t crying. Castiel wondered how much effort it took her to hold herself back at that moment. “His grace was fading anyway, ever since he’d turned his back on Michael. And I, well… there was a cure. A demon cure, Kevin called it. I was gonna go through with it.”

“So you could stay together,” Castiel understood. “Grow old together.”

Meg moved to settle on his lap again.

“It was a stupid plan.”

“Did he accept?” Castiel asked refusing to be distracted by her closeness. “What did he say?”

Meg sighed and kissed his neck instead on answering. Castiel shuddered, but refused to let the feeling distract him.

“Meg…”

“He said he would think about it,” she said. “Never got to tell me what he decided.”

Slowly, she backed away to stare directly at him.

“What would you have said?”

It was a complicated issue. Castiel didn’t want to hurt Meg’s feelings, of course, but he was an angel. He couldn’t imagine himself being anything but. The short time he hadn’t been… well, he’d rather not think about it. Even now, with his wings in tatters and his grace half-depleted, he couldn’t picture himself wanting to be anything different. He couldn’t imagine running away from Heaven, from what he had done to it.

But the Castiel in this world had been different. He had found a different cause, a worthy cause, in saving humanity. He hadn’t made the same mistakes, he hadn’t committed the hubris of trying to crown himself the new God or been tricked by Metatron into causing the fall of all his brothers and sisters or agreed to release Lucifer again. He hadn’t had Sam and Dean by his side to teach him the value of friendship and family or Jack to give him someone to care for.

But he’d had Meg.

Castiel grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers, one by one, as he reflected on it all.

“I think… I think the fact he even had to think about it goes to show just how much you meant to him,” he said, choosing his words with utmost care. “I think that no matter whatever else happened, he treasured you, he treasured what you two had. And I think he knew just how much he meant to you.”

Meg stared at his face closely and the same bitter smile bloomed on her lips.

“That’s not the answer to my question. But it doesn’t matter.”

She hugged him again, massaging the spot in his back until Castiel groaned, ready to get lost in her body once again.

 

* * *

 

The texture of the clothes against his skin felt… strange. After spending the night wearing nothing, making love to Meg against the hard floor, his muscles were slightly sore, but he wasn’t tired. He was, in fact, much calmer than he had been ever since they had crossed the rift into this world. Calmer than he had been in years, in fact.

He fumbled with his tie, aware that Meg was watching him closely from the chair where she was putting on her boots. After shaking her head a couple of times, she stood up and strutted towards him to help him.

“I gotta ask, what’s with the holy tax accountant look?”

“My vessel in fact used to belong to a devout man who was a sales provider for AM radio,” he explained. “Not a tax accountant.”

“Not complaining, though. He was cute.” Meg laughed, as she adjusted his tie. “There.”

But she didn’t let go of it and she didn’t walk away. Castiel stared at her face closely.

“What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

He knew it was a rhetorical question. She couldn’t have anything in her teeth because she hadn’t eaten anything. It was amazing how easily he could slip back into understanding her particular brand of humor.

He slithered an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Meg placed a hand on his chest to keep her balance as he did so.

“Come with us,” Castiel said.

Her smile faltered in the edge of her lips.

“Cas…”

“What’s keeping you here?” he asked. “If you come with us to our world, I can protect you. We can be together. I know it’s not perfect. But we can try.”

The look in Meg’s face was one of utter sadness, in a way he hadn’t been expecting at all.

“And what about her?”

The question completely disarmed him.

“This is guilt because you couldn’t save her, isn’t it?” she continued. “But now you know she still exists in that Empty place you told me about. The nephil kid could called her like he called you. It doesn’t seem fair that you bring me with you just so you can have a replacement goldfish.”

“It’s not like that…” he tried to protest, but she simply patted him in the cheek to shush him.

“You need to make up your mind first. If you want _me_ , for who I am in this world, then I’ll come with you. But if you really want her…”

She didn’t finish her sentence and she didn’t really have to. She stepped back, escaping from his arms and headed for the hallway.

“What about you?” Castiel asked. “Could you ever want me without thinking of him?”

Meg stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to look at him over her shoulder.

If she was going to answer his question, though, she never got around it. Sam and Dean climbed up the stairs right then.

“Where the hell were you? We were looking for you all night,” Dean said.

“Good morning to you too, beefcake,” Meg snapped back. “My, are you grumpy without your coffee.”

“I’m not talking to you,” Dean said.

“Can we just…?” Sam interrupted them and sighed. “Ketch found something on Kevin’s notes.”

 

* * *

 

“The Prophet doesn’t seem to have paid a lot of attention to this. He was looking for something else, so the abandoned several lines of investigation when they proved useless to him,” Arthur informed them once they were all reunited. “It was… difficult to make sense of his handwriting and his… uh, ramblings…”

“Kevin was in a lot of stuff back then,” Meg commented with a fond smile. She shrugged when everyone turned to look at her, slightly disturbed by her nonchalance.

“In any case,” Arthur continued after clearing his throat. “There was a spell in the Demon Tablet that seems designed to transmit messages across dimensions. According to the notes, this seems to have been used in communications between Heaven and Hell, when there were still attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict Lucifer had caused. But if we can adapt it, we could potentially use it to communicate with Rowena and coordinate a rescue.”

“Adapt it?” Mary asked.

“The list of ingredients is… incomplete,” Arthur said. “Kevin mentions only two out of three of them. But through trial and error, I believe we can…”

“The third one is demon blood,” Meg interrupted.

Arthur stared her blinking, then lowered his eyes to the notes and raised them back at her with a frown.

“It doesn’t say…”

“It’s in the Demon Tablet,” she said. “All the spells in the Demon Tablet require demon blood. Trust me. At some point Kevin just… stopped writing it because it was a given.”

Arthur turned the pages of the notebook and then nodded, as if that explained something that he had been wondering himself.

“Well, then we just need the rest of the ingredients,” Arthur said. “I think Jack could perform it with our help.”

“But I… I don’t know if I will be able to contact our original world,” Jack pointed out. “What if I end up sending a message to a different person?”

It was a valid concern. Meg, however, rolled her eyes with impatience.

“Can I see that?” she asked, and before Ketch could refuse or say yes, she snatched the notebook away from him and turned the pages around quickly. “We can change some of the words and make it so the spell focus on a singular person instead of a place. So as long as you focus on this Rowena person, you should be able to reach her. Do you think you can do that, kid?”

As always when he was put on the spot, Jack looked inhibited. But after a moment, he swallow and nodded with confidence Castiel could tell was fake.

“I think so, yes.”

“Well, then.” Meg closed the notebook and beamed at them. “Let’s get to work.”

The list of ingredients wasn’t long. It required ashes of an angel father burnt in holy fire (which Castiel himself provided), a pinch of consecrated soil and if Meg was right, a pint of demon blood (“It’s always a pint”). All the ingredients were to be boiled in clear, holy water and drank by the person (or angel) who would try the communication across the dimensional divide.

Meg grabbed a knife and made a deep, long cut down her forearm herself, letting the black blood drip down a container at the same time she criticized Arthur’s translation of the spell.

“Listen to me: if you say it like that, you’re gonna end up invoking a Hellhound instead,” she told him. “Except that none will manifest, because they’re all dead. Congratulations, you just made a useless spell.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes at her, but in the end, he ripped the page he was writing on and started again on a new one.

“I think that’s enough,” Mary said, moving away the bowl.

Meg held her slashed hand up and Castiel approached her quickly with gauzes and bandages.

“That’s really nice of you, Clarence,” she said, holding her hand away so the blood wouldn’t fall on her clothes. “But it won’t be necessary.”

She held up her arm to show that the wound was already closing.

Right. This Meg hadn’t been tortured to the point that her body hadn’t been able to heal itself.

She looked over Arthur’s shoulder, analyzing his work and aggressively correcting him at every stage. The Man of Letters was clearly not happy about that particular development, but he stayed silent.

In the meantime, Castiel stared at Meg. Wondering.

“There we go,” Mg said, snatching the notebook from Arthur’s hand and showing the results to Castiel. “What do you think?”

Castiel read it carefully. She had used Latin instead of Enochian or another ancient language because it would be easier to pronounce for someone with limited spell-casting abilities. The spell was very specific in its requirements and it had careful annotations on the correct pronunciations of the words. Castiel nodded.

“It should work.”

Jack read the spell nervously several times, his lips moving to follow every word. Finally, he nodded.

“Okay. I think I have it.”

Castiel extended to him the glass where they had mixed all the ingredients, but at the last second, he was hesitant to let go.

“If you don’t feel like it, I can try it,” he offered. “It’s probably safer and I don’t want you to…2

“I can do it,” Jack insisted. “Let me do it, Castiel.”

Castiel didn’t move for one second longer. Then he surrendered the glass. Jack recited the spell in long, calmed sentences, his frown tight with concentration to get all the words right, and gulped down the mixture. He grimaced with disgust and remained where he was.

“I… I don’t feel anything,” he said.

“Huh. Did you say the words…?” Arthur started, but went quiet as Jack doubled over in pain.

“Jack!” Castiel shouted, instinctively reaching for him and helping him down to a chair.

Jack didn’t seem to even realize what was happening: his eyes glowed silver and his mouth hanged open. Sam came running and helped Castiel hold him as Jack’s body convulsed. His hands gripped unto the armrests so tight they cracked under his sheer strength.

“What’s going on?” Castiel asked, fear rising in his gut that the spell’s modifications had backfired somehow. “Meg!”

Meg approached Jack with a calm that infuriated Castiel and put her hands on the nephilim’s forehead.

“Jack. Jack, listen. Concentrate. You have to find Rowena. Find her. Tell her where we are. Tell her you need her help.”

Jack’s shook again and his mouth gasped for air. His skin was burning underneath Castiel’s fingers, so hot that Sam had to let go with a groan of pain.

“It’s too much. We have to stop it!” Castiel shouted. “It’s hurting him!”

“Give it a second,” Meg replied calmly.

Castiel was about to scream at her again, but then the light in Jack’s eyes went out. His breathing hitched and then stopped, only to re-start a second later with a deep cavernous huff followed by a cough.

“Water!” Castiel demanded. “Hurry. Jack, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Jack nodded faintly and grabbed the bottle someone gave to him. He took two trembling sips and coughed once more. The temperature of his skin was slowly cooling down, but Castiel kept his hand on Jack’s and stared at his face until the nephilim was ready to speak again:

“Rowena…” He stopped, took another sip and continued with a hoarse voice: “She found a way to keep open. She’s been waiting for us. We have to hurry.”

 

* * *

 

The camp was ready to go in a moment’s notice. The survivors had very little to carry with them and they had been ready to leave their world since the idea had been proposed to them. Castiel supposed it was a combination of wanting to abandon this dangerous place and Mary’s strong leadership skill. Most of them respected her opinion and trusted, and if she had told them they needed to go to Hell, they would have followed her there too.

Castiel remembered having that kind of trust put into him. These days, he couldn’t even get a demon to give him a clear answer on whether she was planning to go with him or not.

“Oh, hell, you’re unbearable.”

“And you’re stubborn,” Castiel groaned back at her. “Meg, I’m leaving. I’m asking you for the last time to come with me. There’s nothing for you here. If you stay, it’s only a matter of time until Michael and his angels find out about you. In our world, you won’t be hunted any more. You can find peace.”

Meg crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Castiel was once again about to tell her just how intolerable her stubbornness was when it dawn exactly why his words weren’t convincing her at all.

“You… you’re afraid of that. You’re afraid you won’t have a cause.”

Slowly, she turned her eyes back towards him.

“Maybe you knew me better than I thought,” she admitted in a whisper. “Yes. Here, I know who I am. I’m the last demon standing. Who am I going to be over there? What am I going to fight for?”

“Well… I don’t believe for a second that you won’t manage to find some trouble to get into. Or maybe I will get in trouble. After all, Sam and Dean have penchant for dragging me into it. There’s Jack, too, now.” He sighed. Just the thought of everything that could go wrong in the near future made him feel exhausted. “But I want you to come. Whatever challenges may come, we can face them together.”

Meg watched him closely and with a sigh, her posture relaxed. She took a step towards him.

“You really know how to sweet talk a girl.” She threw her arms around his neck and Castiel immediately put his on her waist. “Alright. I’ll come.”

“You… you will?” Castiel asked, surprised.

“Yes. But you have to promise not to make it boring.”

Castiel didn’t have time to promise her he would. Sam came around the corner and cleared his throat.

“We’re going,” he announced, simply.

Castiel didn’t turn to look at him. He wanted to take in the way Meg’s eyes shone for a moment longer.

Soon they would be shining under the warm, golden sun of his own world.

Meg didn’t complain when he kept his hand on her as they approached the bus where the survivors were already finished loading their meager belongings. But her grip did become tighter when Gabriel and Dean walked out of the school with Lucifer.

His eyes fell on her immediately and Castiel barely resisted the urge to stand in front of her to hide her.

“Where did you come from?” he asked, eyeing her up and down.

“Hello, father,” Meg said. Somehow she made the last word sound like an insult she wanted to spit on his face.

Lucifer tilted his head at her.

“Wait. I know you…” he started saying, but Gabriel gave him a gentle prod with the tip of his blade.

“There’ll be time for that later,” he said. “We have a date with a rift and it cannot wait.”

Castiel sat on the second row, with Meg by his side, his eyes fixed on the back of Lucifer’s head as he ignored the barely whispered thoughts, the contained enthusiasm of the survivors taking between each other. He had been behaving well (almost too well) for the time he had been there. But Meg was right: he couldn’t be trusted, no matter how much he insisted that he had changed. Castiel looked at Jack, sitting on the row across from him. He still looked pale. The spell had left him exhausted and he hadn’t had nearly enough time to recharge afterwards. It didn’t matter. Soon enough they would all be home and have the chance to rest and think of a way to prevent Michael…

The bus skidded to a halt. Castiel’s body was lunged forwards and he barely had time to put an arm in front of Meg to prevent her from crashing against the back of the seat in front of them. Meg recovered her balance faster than any of the humans and looked outside the window.

“Aw, shit. We have company.”

From the sides of the road, Castiel saw two angels approaching the bus calmly, as if they had no hurry at all in the world. Two other angels stood in front of them, preventing them from moving forwards. He didn’t have to look elsewhere to know what was going on.

“It’s an ambush!”

He quickly turned to Sam, Dean and the rest of the humans, who were all already preparing their angel-killing weapons. Besides him, without a word, Meg let her angel blade slid from inside her sleeve into her hand.

“What’s the plan?”

Castiel looked at the brothers and then looked ahead. The rift waiting for them was only a short distance away, but with angels blocking the way…

“We fight them, of course,” Lucifer said, standing up. “Those of us who can. The rest makes a run for it.”

Castiel didn’t like that plan at all. No one seemed to like by mere virtue of who had suggested it, but while they stood hesitating, the windows cracked and exploded, sending shreds of glass in every direction. Castiel barely had time to cover Meg’s face and by the screams and loud curses coming from elsewhere in the bus, he figured some of the other humans hadn’t been so lucky.

They were trying to smoke them out. They wanted them to do exactly what Lucifer had suggested.

But there didn’t seem to be any other choice. Through gritted teeth, he turned towards Dean.

“We’ll cover you.”

The bus shook. The angels were now trying to flip them over.

“Alright, on my signal everybody runs!” Dean ordered. “And you don’t stop running until you’re on the other side of that rift, do you hear me…?”

Meg, Gabriel and Lucifer were already at the door. Jack also stood up to join them, but Castiel grabbed his shoulder and kept him in place.

“No. You go with them.”

“But I can fight!”

“You’re weak still,” Castiel argued. “Go with Sam and Dean. Don’t argue with me on this, Jack.”

Jack stared at him, obviously intending to argue. But the bus shook one more time and time was up.

Meg was the first one to lunged herself through the door, her blade glistening in her hand. Castiel thought he heard her laughing.

He jumped out the stairs as well and took a second to assess the situation. There were at least a dozen angels, surrounding the bus. They had two archangels, one weakened angel and a demon. The odds weren’t good.

Castiel never did care much for the odds.

He spun his blade on his hand and jumped towards the closest angel, his blade easily finding its way into their throat. They fell with a rattle, but Castiel turned from them even before they had hit the floor… just in time to avoid the hit from another angel. He stabbed them in the gut and quickly turned his attention to the flash of red he had caught out of the corner of his eye: Meg was fighting with two angels at the same time and managing, but only barely. She evaded an attack, raised her blade and expertly sank it through one of the angel’s eyes.

For a moment, she was vulnerable and the other angel tried to take advantage of it…

The tip of Castiel’s blade found its way between his ribs. The angel dropped to the ground, clearing the space between the two of them.

In the raging battle, they stared at each other in silence. Meg smirked at him, her cheek sprinkled with blood. Castiel’s heart gave a loud thump, but he had no time to do anything but store the image in his memory and turn around to shout:

“Dean, now!”

The survivors ran out of the bus with Arthur first in line. He lifted up his gun and shoot at an angel that turned around and tried to reach for them. According to Castiel’s calculations, there should be only four angels of the dozen that had attacked them alive, but if they fled and gave word…

He ran around the bus in time to see Lucifer let their limp body fell and then carefully stepped over it, as calmly as if he hadn’t just participated in a battle.

“Where’s my son, Castiel?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Castiel opened his mouth to tell him that Jack had run with the survivors (he must have; Castiel told him to do that) but no words came out.

A large, luminous red circle appeared in the sky. Like a dim second sun or a meteor growing closer with every second that passed.

“Michael,” Castiel muttered.

He returned to the humans in a heartbeat and was relieved to see that many had already made it to the rift, with Bobby, Mary, Sam and Dean covering the rear. But many of them were still far away and Michael and the other angels would come…

A shiver went down his spine when he saw Meg and Jack, halfway to the rift. Meg had her hands on Jack’s chest and appeared to be screaming something at him. Castiel caught the tail end of her words:

“… don’t be an idiot, kid!”

“I can fight him!” Jack replied. “I’m strong enough!”

“I’m glad you feel that way, but now’s not the time…!”

The ground trembled violently, throwing them off their balance. Castiel fell down on his face, his hands extended towards Meg and Jack. When he looked up, he saw Sam, Dean, and a handful of survivors had also been knocked up, but they were already stumbling back to their feet. Michael stood near them, flanked by two more angels, his bright eyes fixed on the brothers.

“No,” Castiel muttered. “No, no, no…”

One of the angel’s body burst, spreading blood and gore on the ground. Lucifer had his hand in the air.

“Hello, brother,” he greeted Michael with confidence, before lifting his hand and snapping his fingers one more time. The other angel also died bloodily as Meg, Jack and Castiel staggered to their feet.

“Go!” Gabriel shouted as he ran towards them. “Go!”

Castiel didn’t question it. He grabbed Meg by one hand and push Jack with the other. There were more lights in the sky and long, acute sounds in the air. More angels were coming and the last survivors were still crossing. Lucifer shouted in pain in the distance…

Meg stopped on his track and pulled Castiel and Jack behind a tree, hiding them from sight. They were so close to the right they could feel the air crackling with its power.

“Meg, what are you…?”

Meg shut him up with a brief kiss, then pull his head down to whisper something in his ear. A single word, melodious and ancient that was burned into Castiel’s mind along with the way she smiled at him, the sadness in her eyes.

“We’re gonna get swarmed. You’re gonna need someone to distract them.”

“No.” He shook his head, refusing to accept what she was suggesting. “No.”

Meg escaped from his grip.

“Find me, Clarence,” she told him and turned to Jack. “Get him out of here, kid.”

The first angel landed as Meg ran towards it. Her blade nicked his shoulder, distracting him from the humans jumping through the rift.

“Hey, featherbrains!” she taunted him. “Come and get me!”

“Let’s go!” Jack called out. “Castiel, we must go!”

Castiel gritted his teeth and followed Jack. He would make sure that the nephilim crossed the rift safely and then he would turn back and fight with Meg.

He wasn’t leaving her behind. Not again.

Meg was right. Just as they reach the rift, he heard another angel landing behind them, but it was too late. The last of the survivors crossed the rift, leaving only Sam, Dean and Gabriel.

“Where’s Lucifer?” Dean asked.

Castiel shook his head. “Go, Jack,” he ordered and spun on his heels.

The angels had disarmed Meg. One of them was holding her back while the other approached her, blade in hand.

He should have moved faster. He shouldn’t have let her go against them. He should have dragged her and pushed her through the rift himself.

All of those regrets flashed through his mind like lightning, like the bullet that came out of Sam’s gun.

Too late. Too slow. Not loud enough to drown out her scream of pain, not bright enough to erase the golden glow of her skin that shone bright for a second, a fraction of a second.

And then there was nothing. Nothing as the last demon standing fell soundlessly to the ground.

The urgency of the situation, the ugliness of that world, the voices shouting at him; all of it was secondary, unimportant compared to the storm brewing inside of him. To the rage that rose like wildfire in his mind, to the grief that punched him in the stomach and squeezed his heart.

He shouted, he was sure he shouted loud enough to tear his throat out. But he couldn’t hear it over the sound of his blood racing through his year, he couldn’t feel anything but Jack’s arms around him, pulling him away, preventing him from running at those angels and…

The world disappeared in a blink and Castiel felt backwards. There were no longer in the open wilderness, and the artificial bright light blinded him after so many days in the bleakness of the darkened sun. Castiel looked around to see Jack sprawled on the floor, apparently having stumbled from the force of pulling Castiel through the rift with him and the survivors all staring at him wide-eyed.

He ignored them all. He had nothing to say to them. He got up and took a step back towards the opening.

Dean came out of it and walked straight towards him, putting his hands on his shoulders and forcing Castiel to look at him.

“Cas, stop! Stop!” he called out, his voice barely piercing through the fog of fury in Castiel’s mind. “She’s gone! I’m sorry, but she’s gone. There’s no point in going back there.”

“No,” Castiel managed to say.

Jack came behind him and put his hands on Castiel’s shoulders. Castiel struggled in vain against his hold.

“No,” he repeated. “No, no… please, let me… just let me…”

Sam stumbled in through the rift.

And then it flashed and vanished from existence. Somewhere to his left, Rowena let out an exhausted sigh.

It was over.

Castiel stopped, paralyzed, as the realization washed over him, cold and unstoppable.

He’d lost her. Again.

Dean and Jack finally let him go and stepped back as the wave of Castiel’s heartache shook the bunker’s walls, knocked books from the shelves and blew out the light bulbs above their heads.

 

* * *

 

It took a while, but it eventually dawned on the humans that they were alive. He didn’t know who it was, but suddenly, someone laughed and another person started sobbing loudly. The outburst of emotion expanded through all of them until they were all hugging each other and then someone else proposed a toast and suddenly, there was alcohol flowing for everybody.

Castiel sat quietly near a corner, watching the humans celebrate and feeling numb. His mind replayed what had happened over and over. He should have gone with her. He should have grasped her hand tighter, drag her to the rift with them. He should have…

There was a scrape next to him. He looked up to see that Jack had dragged a chair next to him and was sitting down, offering him a glass of the whiskey everybody else was drinking.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Thank you,” Castiel muttered with a hoarse voice. He took the glass and emptied it in one gulp. He really, really wanted to get drunk, but he didn’t have the energy to get out of the bunker and find a liquor store.

“She was nice, even though she was a demon,” Jack continued.

“Yes. She was.”

“What did she say?” he asked. Castiel frowned at him, confused. “Before she went up against the angels. She told you something.”

Castiel stared at the nephilim. A dull ache expanded through his chest, as if his heart was starting to beat again. Slow. Still hurting too much to believe in any kind of hope.

But the single word danced in his memory, clear as day.

“What was it?”

_Find me, Clarence._

“Her name.”


End file.
